


intractable

by silkinsilence



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, BDSM, Dom/sub, F/F, Humiliation, I tagged PWP but there is in fact some plot, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-02-28 02:57:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13262175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkinsilence/pseuds/silkinsilence
Summary: A meeting, a surrender, desperation, and an end.Angela hates Moira O'Deorain. She tells herself that all along.





	1. meeting

**Author's Note:**

> A fourshot, or a oneshot in four parts, featuring mostly porn and a little plot, as well as angst and a healthy serving of emotional issues.

Not Ana.

Not Ana, but beautiful. Not Ana, but tall and thin and lordly. Not Ana, but with a voice that sent goosebumps up Angela's arms. Not Ana, but leaving her shaking all the same. Ana's office, but not Ana.

Not Ana but a monster.

"I'm honored to _finally_ meet you, Doctor Ziegler," Moira O'Deorain said.

"How did you get in here?"

She asked the first question that reached her lips, the first thing her racing mind could think of. Her communicator was in her pocket. She could reach for it, call Ana, call _anyone_ and tell them that there was an intruder on base. She could have done all those things, _should_ have, but she did none of them. She just kept looking.

"I opened the door; it wasn't locked," O'Deorain said, and in the same breath, continued. "I was looking for the captain, obviously, but how lucky to find you instead! Do you have a minute? I have so many _questions_ about the paper you published last month and I'd love to hear the answers from the horse's mouth, as it were—"

" _On base_ ," Angela said. She took a step forward. They were too close together now, barely a foot apart. She should reach for her communicator. She should tear her eyes away. She should stop looking at those thin lips and sculpted nose.

She had seen pictures in articles, seen video on the news, but the real thing was different. The real thing was so much more. Like meeting Ana for the first time—

But that was _not_ a comparison to make; this was _nothing_ like that; this woman was _nothing_ like Ana, nothing like a hero and veteran and commander and lover.

O'Deorain looked down at her, eyebrows lifting.

"You want me to telecommute? I'm afraid you'd have a good deal more work on your hands if I wasn't around to look after my charges."

She was smiling, looking more amused with every word they exchanged. On her narrow, pointed face, the expression resembled a fox's grin. How was she so _tall?_

"You don't have clearance. You don't _belong_ here."

"Oh, is _that_ the problem?"

O'Deorain shoved a hand into the pocket of her (slim, well-fitted) trousers and produced an ID card analogous to the one clipped to the lapel of Angela's lab coat. A card rendered largely pointless by the base's more advanced identification systems but whose ubiquity persisted nonetheless.

_Moira O'Deorain. Agent ID: B185. Date of Birth: ..._

Angela read it numbly, mindlessly, disbelief only growing. She tried to find any sign of counterfeiting, the slightest mark that would show it as the fake it was.

"You are _not_ an agent, Overwatch would _never hire you—_ "

"Why is that?"

Angela stepped forward again. Too close now. O'Deorain did not back away. She remained still even as Angela lifted a hand to grab the ID card and pull it toward her face. She was not looking at it. Her eyes were fixed on O'Deorain's expression, caught somewhere between amusement and questioning.

"Doctor Ziegler," she said, and they were close enough for Angela to feel the warmth of her breath. Her heart was racing. Her mind was static.

Angela pressed her lips to the fingers holding the card. A kiss. A plea. An acquiescence.

O'Deorain pulled back, but only for a second, only to slip her ID back in the pocket it had come from. Then her hand was there again, her wicked thumbnail tracing Angela's lower lip.

They were pressed together, faces inches apart. She could feel every centimeter of the other woman against her, bony and thin and—soft. Utterly inappropriate. And then there was a leg in between her own, the hint of pressure enough to make her shudder, to make a noise unsuitable for any _professional discussion_ slip from between her lips. A gasp or a moan or a choked-off cry.

O'Deorain's animal smile returned.

"What was that, Doctor Ziegler?"

"Your work is—unscientific, _unethical_ —"

The knee ground against her. She could feel O'Deorain's breath on her cheek, her lips. She could not look away from her bright eyes. Ana's cybernetic one had been made to model that it was replacing, but not so with this woman. Crimson and deep deep blue.

Angela was so _wet,_ already halfway gone.

"Unethical? Hm. Perhaps I need a role model."

The ID was gone; her long-nailed fingers were at the buttons of Angela's lab coat.

She was going to let this happen. In the office of the woman she loved, she was going to give herself to the (talented) hands of someone she'd never met before, someone she hated by reputation and by her work and by everything she represented—

"Tell me, Angela. Is this _ethical_?"

O'Deorain's lips moved over Angela's ear and she was lost. She opened her mouth as if to respond and all that came out was a groan.

"You seem to enjoy my _work._ "

" _Moira._ "

Angela had not heard the door open, but she responded to the new voice as she always did, immediately hyperaware of what she was doing. Almost without thinking she shoved the taller woman back. The thigh pulled back from between her own, leaving a wet heat in its wake.

Ana, in the doorway, was impassive. The only sign of her reaction was the small furrow between her brows.

O'Deorain's hands withdrew. She straightened and turned, her smirk still in place but muted. Her attention was suddenly all for Ana. Angela hated herself for wanting it again.

"What are you doing in here?"

"Looking for you, what else would I be—?"

"Getting yourself caught? What are you thinking?"

"Nobody saw me," O'Deorain said, waving one hand dismissively. Angela watched her nails glint in the light. She wanted those nails on her. She wanted to know exactly how they would feel digging into her skin, leaving red tracks in their wake.

"Obviously _somebody_ saw you," Ana said, and her frown as her gaze moved to Angela was her first acknowledgment of the third woman in the room.

Moira looked over her shoulder. Her eyes burned.

"Doctor Ziegler won't tell. Will you?"

"And why shouldn't I?" Angela snapped, the tension building in her stomach coming out as annoyance. She was furious with herself for reacting like this, for being wet and wanting as perhaps the only person she'd ever really hated leaned in again.

"Because you want me to touch you again."

Her words burned like _fire_ through Angela's veins. She couldn't open her mouth to deny it. She couldn't even pretend that O'Deorain was wrong.

"Moira, out."

Ana's voice was even sterner now, tinged with anger. Her eyebrows slanted together in an angry furrow as she stared the other woman down. Such a look would have cowed Angela, or indeed anyone in the organization, in an instant, but it seemed to merely slide off O'Deorain. She sighed, stretched, and moved away from Angela without sparing her another glance.

"I had things to talk to you about."

"Later," Ana said, leaving no room for argument.

O'Deorain paused by the door. "So I'll see you tonight?"

"Later," Ana repeated.

O'Deorain shrugged, gave a final smirk, and left the office, closing the door with a sharp snap behind her.

Ana's stern look vanished. She moved to the far side of the desk to pull off her coat and drape it over her chair, and then her attention was all for Angela. Her eyes, warm brown, so unlike O'Deorain's, swept sharply up and down the younger woman.

"What was that about?"

Angela shook her head, managed to force words from her dry throat.

"I was waiting for you, and she came in. And she—well—it was nothing."

A lie. An obvious lie at that. She had closed the gap. She had offered herself up. All the shame of that rose thick and cloying in her throat now as she looked at the woman she actually cared for, even as her body made a traitor of her.

"Nothing. Well, you have an interesting idea of _nothing,_ _habibti._ "

Angela blushed, but Ana did not press the matter. She just leaned against the desk chair and gazed out the window. She looked distant, distracted.

Angela wanted little more than to pull Ana in and kiss her, to forget the woman who had just disappeared out the door, to come on Ana's fingers and muffle her sounds on her own arm. To apologize, verbally or not, to herself and to her captain.

But there were much more pressing concerns now than her own lust.

"...But Ana, _Moira O'Deorain_? An _agent_?"

The corner of Ana's mouth twitched downward.

"She was _supposed_ to lay low. She's not very good at taking orders, but I assumed that one at least—"

"You don't want people to know about her? You don't want _me_ to know about her?" Angela couldn't keep the bite out of her voice. She didn't know whether she was angry at Ana for keeping her secrets, or at herself, so easily seduced. "Shouldn't that tell you what kind of idea taking her onboard is?"

"Not my idea, Angela. She's—Gabriel's."

And Angela understood.

"Blackwatch," she said, a curse. "But still—you must have approved—and how could he think it's a good idea? Surely I'm not the only one who's read her work—"

"Of course he's read it. I have, too, for what it's worth. But he's interested in unorthodox methods. People who think outside the box. And he likes—well, he likes dragging up outsiders."

Out of benevolence? Or to engender loyalty?

Angela did not voice her thoughts. She had no words for the feeling eating at her. It had not ebbed when Moira had left. It had, to the contrary, swelled with every terse word from Ana's mouth.

"She will bring nothing good to Overwatch," Angela said, putting all the force she did not feel into the words.

"You didn't seem to be complaining when she was here," Ana said, and though her tone was mild the dry words were all the reprimand Angela needed.

"I'm sorry—"

"Don't apologize. I know how you are. But it does give me quite an idea."


	2. surrender

"Look how wet you are. Look how needy."

Her sharp-nailed fingertips dragged up and down none-too-gently between Angela's labia. The occasional flick to her aching clit was hardly a relief from the heat building between her thighs. Nor did those cruel fingers ever offer more than a tantalizing circle around her cunt. Angela was empty and _soaking_ and wanting and— _yes,_ needy.

"You look good like this, Doctor Ziegler. So pretty on your knees with your legs spread for me. You can spit as much venom as you like; we both know this is what you want. To surrender to me. To let me take you as slow as I please—"

"Enjoy the sound of yourself, don’t you?"

Ana's voice, dry with annoyance and vague arousal, interrupted the stupor Moira's taunting words had cast over Angela. She returned to reality and the uncomfortable knowledge that she should not enjoy this nearly as much as she did, should not enjoy it at all.

" _She_ likes it. Look. See?"

The fingers were gone; Angela moaned despite herself. She imagined Moira holding them up, displaying her talons all wet and dripping. All from her own cunt. She couldn't even deny it. She did like it. She liked every filthy word that fell from the repulsive woman's lips.

Ana sighed audibly. Angela imagined her uncrossing and re-crossing her legs. watching the proceedings with that distant interest. Was _she_ enjoying this, enjoying watching Angela make a slut of herself?

"Well, _Engel_? What say you?"

The arousal, if it had ever flickered, returned. Angela could feel her cheeks and forehead burning. It felt as if every inch of her was flushed and hot.

She licked her lips and swallowed. Her throat was dry. Embarrassment and shame held her tongue. Just Ana was one thing. It was hard enough then. But with Moira O'Deorain's hands on her, wet with her slick, it was a different thing altogether. The shame was enough to choke her. But every bitter thought, every twinge of self-loathing, was echoed in the wet pulse between her thighs.

Her silence was only a heartbeat, but it was too long.

" _Well_?" The brutal fingernails were at her scalp, scratching, twining her hair between them and _pulling_ until she couldn't help but make a sound at it. " _Speak,_ dog."

She shuddered at that, could have come then and there if Moira was willing to do anything other than tease—

"Yes," she said, very quietly, little more than a rasp.

" _Yes_?" Another sharp tug on her hair. Tears sprang into the corners of her eyes.

"I like it." Louder this time, almost a sob. She said it and hated herself. A betrayal of everything she claimed to stand for. Pathetic and desperate, on her knees for a woman more monster than human. She was grateful for the blindfold just so she didn't have to see the smug look on Moira's face.

"She likes it," Moira repeated. She relinquished her grasp on Angela's hair to deliver a series of stinging blows to her rear. Angela collapsed forward onto her arms. "Likes that too, I'm sure."

She ceased spanking in favor of trailing her nails over the sensitive skin. Angela squirmed. She wanted more, needed to be touched again. But Moira's hand was receding, and then she stopped her ministrations altogether, nothing more than a still presence behind her.

"Do _you_ like it, Commander Amari?"

Her tone was different, deeper, as respectful as she could ever sound. But there was still a purr in it, a coy suggestion hidden under the façade.

Ana sighed again. Then Moira was moving, leaving Angela alone on the hard floor. She squirmed in place and turned her head this way and that as if doing so would let her hear more. But the next sounds that reached her hardly improved her situation.

She knew those noises, the slick press of mouth to mouth, tongues sliding together, languid and unhurried. She _knew_ them, and how she wanted to rip off the blindfold and _look,_ see her captain and Moira pressed together on the chair. Did Ana stroke her back how she stroked Angela’s? Tangle a hand in that shock of ginger hair? How did Moira kiss? Precise and unyielding? Did she frown in concentration, putting all the effort of an experiment into it—?

Angela couldn’t take it. She was sensitive and so wanting. There were goosebumps on every inch of her skin, though the room was not cold. She wanted to see, to be touched. She herself couldn’t have said whether it was jealousy or just voyeuristic lust.

She curled in onto her knees, pressing one heel between her thighs. It helped, a little, to grind against her clit.

“Look at her. She can’t wait a minute,” Moira said. She was panting. Angela picked out that detail and held onto it.

“Patience has never been Angela’s strong suit.” Ana, for her part, was as steady as ever.

“A dangerous foible for a surgeon. I could teach it to her.”

Angela ground her teeth together and her heel against her clit just to stop herself from begging. In any other circumstance, she would be loath to express interest in what Moira O’Deorain found to be effective teaching methods. But now she was hard-pressed to imagine anything more tantalizing.

“Could you? She might surprise you. She can be quite intractable.”

Angela wanted very badly to ask if that was a compliment or a complaint.

“Everything has a melting point, Captain Amari,” Moira rumbled, her voice low like the purr of a large cat. She had the claws and the appetite to match.

“...Come here, _Engel_ ,” Ana rasped. Angela could not obey quickly enough; she knew what that tone meant.

Did Moira?

The stray thought took her by surprise. She should not feel such jealousy given the circumstances, given what she’d agreed to. She knew what she meant to Ana, knew that their relationship was not—was _less than—_ what she wanted. But jealous she was, on the outskirts of something she did not know about. Kneeling blindfolded on the floor while they kissed.

Still she crawled forward until a hand cupped her chin and brushed her hair back behind her ears. The callouses and lack of nails identified it as Ana’s, even if the gentleness hadn’t.

“I have enjoyed this,” Ana said conversationally. “You look pretty when you blush. When you’re ashamed. But Doctor O’Deorain’s kept you to herself long enough. I’m not patient either, Angela.”

She needed no more direction. Angela shifted to her knees and reached cautiously forward until her hands found the legs of the chair, Ana’s knees, her belt and the thick cloth of her trousers. She had done this enough that the blindfold was not much of an impediment. Her fingers knew how to move to undo the buckle, to unzip and unlace until she felt hot skin and coarse hair, and then her mouth took the place of her hands.

“Good girl,” Ana sighed, and the words went through Angela in a shiver of delight. She was only too glad to press her nose forward and smell and taste her mistress once more.

Ana was _wet._ Angela traced her slit again and again with an eager tongue until her chin was damp and her breath came in short pants. A hand tangled in her hair forced her down, redirected her attentions to Ana’s clit. Angela went obediently, licking and sucking at the hard little nub.

“Hands and knees,” a different voice snapped, and before she had a chance to react there were sharp nails digging into the soft flesh of her hips. Angela whined into Ana’s cunt but shifted, reluctantly pulling her hands off the chair and returning to the doglike position of moments previous. Her disinclination was short-lived, however, when Moira’s fingers slipped between her thighs.

Angela’s moans were muffled in Ana’s skin. It was difficult to focus on her task at hand now when Moira was, at last, touching her _properly,_ rubbing her clit in circles while her other hand stroked and scratched her thighs and stomach and back. Pleasure and pain all at once.

“I trust you won’t come before I do, Angela,” Ana murmured, and the sternness of her face and voice was enough to encourage Angela to pay more attention to what was in front of her than what was behind.

The blindfold was a welcome relief now to lessen the sensory onslaught. There was only Ana’s scent and taste, thick and musky, and the feel of her as Angela’s tongue slipped between her lips and flicked her erect clit over and over again. And then her own lust, the heat between her thighs growing and growing as she soaked Moira’s fingers, as nails dug into her tender skin, until she was certain she was going to have no choice—

But Ana’s hands were curling tight into her hair, pushing her head down, and her hips were tilted upward and grinding against Angela’s face. She came with a hoarse oath. For a few seconds Angela couldn’t breathe. In those seconds, Moira’s thumb pressed hard against her clit. Even as she couldn’t see, the world spun, and she followed her mistress with a panting, wordless cry.

Moira’s fingers worked her through the orgasm, another kindness. Angela thrust back against her without thinking about it, leaning into the touch until Moira chuckled and pulled away.

Limp and unsteady, the aftershocks still going through her, Angela rested her sweaty forehead against Ana’s calf. The military-issue trousers were rough against her cheek, but a welcome relief from the heat.

“You’re spoiled,” Ana said, but Angela didn’t have to see her to know she was smiling. A gentle hand stroked her hair.

_I know,_ she thought, too breathless to speak.  In the afterglow, all she could ever think of was how lucky she was, her gratitude all for Ana even  though the climax had come from someone else.

H er breath slowly returned. Her heartbeat evened. She lifted a hand to wipe the dampness from her chin and tender lips. 

“ _Engel_ ,” Ana said a few moments later, “would you like to repay our guest for her generosity?”

Angela hesitated only for a moment. The question was not really a question. She had anticipated this, after all, even looked forward to it. There was just the brief moment of indecision, of  _revulsion,_ at the idea of...servicing Moira O’Deorain.

“Yes, Ma’am,” she said.

“Good girl.” Ana caressed her cheeks and lips. “She’s all yours, Doctor O’Deorain.”

“Very well.”

M oira’s hand was back at her scalp, grasping and pulling her hair until Angela had no choice but to crawl back toward her just to lessen the pressure. With Ana in the room’s only chair, Moira was standing, leaning against the desk. She released Angela’s ponytail when she was kneeling at her feet. The linoleum was cold and hard on Angela’s knees, and Moira undoubtedly had no interest in going easy on her.

A sleek dress shoe insinuated itself between Angela’s legs. She hurriedly wiggled them apart, and was rewarded when Moira pressed her foot briefly, roughly, at the apex of her thighs.

“Mouth open,” Moira commanded. Was her voice lower now, more unsteady, or was that Angela’s desperate imagination? “Tongue out.”

It was humiliating to be ordered thus. But she obeyed.

The fingers that pressed down onto her tongue were damp, a familiar smell and taste clinging to them. The fingers that had been teasing her minutes ago; the fingers onto which she’d come.

“Suck.”

She did. She wrapped her tongue and lips about the slim digits. The nails almost hurt. She sucked and licked until she couldn’t taste herself on Moira’s hand any longer.

“You like the taste, don’t you?”

The fingers slid out. Angela waited a few seconds to reply. Once more lust and self-loathing waged their futile battle in the back of her throat.

“...Yes.”

“ _Yes_?”

The shoe pressed onto her cunt again, but this time the pressure was enough to hurt.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Angela ground out, resenting it, resenting the use of a title that should have belonged to Ana and Ana alone.

“’Yes, _Doctor_ ,’” Moira corrected.

Angela was silent. She would not say it. She would _not_ give Moira that respect or satisfaction. To say it would legitimize the woman’s _work,_ if it could be called that. More than that, it would be admitting that Moira was her equal.

The shoe forced itself down, grinding too hard against her oversensitive clit. She squirmed in place, bit at her lips, but did not speak.

“Behave, Angela.”

Ana might as well have slapped her. Disobeying Moira was one thing, but if Ana commanded her...there was nothing for it but to swallow her disgust. And swallow she did, even as shame burned in her cheeks and all over her exposed skin.

“Yes, Doctor O’Deorain,” she said very quietly.

“There you go. _Good girl._ ”

In Moira’s impetuous voice, the words could only sound mocking. But the foot withdrew, leaving her wet and aching.

“Now, up on your knees.”

Angela shifted reluctantly. Her knees and shins protested the hard floor, but she ignored the ache as best she could. Her hands found the desk behind Moira and she held onto it to keep her balance.

“No. Here.”

Moira’s hands caught her wrists. Angela felt unbalanced, in danger of falling over, but the unsteadiness lasted only a few seconds. Moira directed her hands to her waist instead. Angela was surprised to find warm skin rather than cloth; when had she taken off her shirt?

She dug her fingers in, but Moira didn’t flinch.

So close together. More intimate than being toyed with earlier. Angela found herself nervous, a feeling that only intensified as she heard Moira’s hands working very close to her face. There was the sound of a belt buckle, and then a zipper, and then the sliding of cloth.

“All right, pet,” Moira said. Her voice was lower now.

She pressed a hand to the back of Angela’s head, gentler this time, and guided her forward.

The first thing Angela noticed was the bristle of trimmed hair against her lips. Somehow that surprised her, though she didn’t know why. Had she expected _Doctor O’Deorain,_ ever so neurotic, to keep herself clean-shaven?

...Was the hair as auburn as that atop her head?

Angela did not wait for another command. She kissed Moira’s clit, moving her tongue gently over it, and was rewarded with a long sigh. There was satisfaction in that, at least, in knowing that she could have an effect on this woman.

She continued to tease the bundle of nerves. Moira’s nails dug into her scalp as she suckled her clit, daring to nip. A hoarse oath sounded above. Angela, smug, smiled. Only then did she venture lower. She licked a long stripe between Moira’s lips and was gratified to find her slick and open. Her taste was earthier than Ana. Angela licked again and again until she was accustomed to the musk.

“That’s good, pet,” Moira grated out. Her hand was a vise against the back of Angela’s head, holding her in place. Her hips offered stunted little jerks. “The captain’s got you trained, hasn’t she?”

She had.

Angela’s tongue breached her entrance. The wet heat was tight around her. She went as deep as she could before pulling back, panting. Unbidden, she moved her hands from Moira’s waist to spread her lips, to allow for better access.

“You look—like you belong there.”

Moira’s voice was ragged. Angela frowned and would certainly have objected if her mouth wasn’t otherwise occupied, but she didn’t let the needling words distract her. She moved her tongue faster, nuzzled her nose against her clit. Her thumbs rubbed steady circles between her labia.

So engrossed was she in the scent and taste of Moira O’Deorain that she didn’t notice the hands in her hair shifting. She didn’t realize what Moira was doing until the blindfold came free.

Ana’s room was dimly lit, but even the low light was overwhelming. Angela blinked and blinked while her brain and newly-freed eyes made sense of the world about her.

She couldn’t help but lose her focus, couldn’t help but pull back even with spit and Moira’s slick dripping down her chin.

...The wiry hair bristling atop her mound _was_ ginger, she noticed.

Her eyes wandered up the lanky woman she was servicing. Moira hadn’t taken her shirt off, just unbuttoned it, and her tie dangled loosely between her bare breasts. Her cheeks were red, her eyelids heavy, her hair disheveled.

Her eyes, blue and red, met Angela’s. For several heartbeats that was all there was. Just them, looking at each other. Moira’s hands were gentle in her hair.

“Well, pet? Finish the job,” she snapped.

And Angela leaned in to obey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The wonderful [shadsie](http://shadsie.tumblr.com/) drew some lovely art based on this chapter! [Please behold it (though be advised that it is NSFW)!](http://nshadsfw.tumblr.com/post/170197410878/she-had-anticipated-this-after-all-even-looked)


	3. desperation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this section contains Pretentious Experimental Fiction Techniques™, angst

Special medical clearance got her through the stringent security that separated Blackwatch’s wing from the rest of the base. Years ago, before she’d known about Commander Reyes’ unit, she’d assumed that the wing contained weapons, intel, something known and permitted only to Overwatch’s elite. A conclusion that hadn’t really been that far off the mark.

But it was just more halls, more rooms, almost identical to any other wing. Perhaps a bit bleaker, though that might have simply been Angela’s bias.

Everything was bleaker now.

Her clearance wouldn’t get her into any rooms or offices without authorization, but that wouldn’t be a problem. What she was doing was illicit, but nothing that would earn her more than a slap on the wrist if she was caught.

The dorm rooms here lacked nameplates, evidence of Commander Reyes’ commitment to his agents’ privacy. It was only a brief stumbling block to Angela, however; a quick inquiry to the base’s systems identified her destination.

She knocked, waited a few seconds, and knocked again. There was no sound from within the room, no voice or footsteps.

Perhaps she was asleep. Perhaps it was unreasonable to have expected her to be awake at one in the morning.

Angela let her head go slack against the door. She stood there like that and felt as if she was the only person on Earth, surrounded by miles of empty rooms and empty hallways. Just her and her memories and the gaping nothingness in her heart that grew broader and broader with every empty second.

She had never spent the night with Ana; why now was the idea of sleeping alone so unbearable?

With her eyes wet and her hands shaking, she reached for her communicator to send a message that she never would have sent had despair and loneliness not throttled her.

[0104] _  
_ **Are you in your room?**

She waited and waited, head pressed against the cold door. She was too desperate to even be ashamed at it. Any of Blackwatch’s agents could come across her, but that seemed a remote possibility. It was hard to believe they even existed when her world was so desolate. She just waited for the buzz and the message that would indicate she was not the only living being in the world.

It felt like hours, eons, but Moira O’Deorain responded.

[0117] _Agent B185_  
**?  
office **

Somehow Angela felt no better. She consulted the digital map once more and redirected herself with leaden feet. More empty hallways to drift through with just the buzzing of the motion-activated lights overhead to keep her company.

Moira’s office was connected to Blackwatch’s medical bay. She found the door unlocked and was wary to open it, wondering if there would be patients on the other side, thinking of an excuse.

But the room was dark and the beds were empty. The only light spilled from the half-open door of the office. Angela breathed in and out and pushed it all the way ajar.

Moira sat at her desk with books and papers spread before her. A notepad nearby was covered in notes in a spidery, almost indecipherable hand.

Messier than her own office, Angela noted with a faint twinge of satisfaction.

Moira’s face was stern, her eyes shadowed, but when she looked up she smiled, and the smile awoke something in Angela. She drank in the sight of this woman she despised and desired, noted the messiness of her hair, the absence of a tie, how her shirt was open several buttons—

“Can I help you, Doctor Ziegler?” she asked, and her smile only grew.

Angela forced herself to look away. A framed quote hanging above the console caught her eye, plain black text on a simple white background:

_By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too._

“Are you busy?” she asked.

Moira gestured at the mass in front of her. “Always more to be done; I’m sure it’s the same for you. But nothing more pressing than Overwatch’s renowned head of medical research gracing me with her presence.”

Suddenly the emptiness was easy to forget as anger took its place. All at once Angela resented herself for coming here.

“Imagine my surprise when you texted. I thought you might be dying, except of course you’d refuse care from me.”

“Never mind,” Angela snapped. The embers of what was left of her pride flared to life. She remembered panting and writhing under this woman’s fingers, but she would not let herself be needled like this. She had not come for that.

She had come for—what?

“Doctor Ziegler, my apologies,” Moira said, forestalling her exit. The trace of humor in her tone was undeniable, but even such an apology was enough. “Here, a truce.”

When Angela turned back, there was a bottle on the desk.

“Had it for ages. If I don’t drink it with someone, I’ll never drink it at all.”

The wine was Spätburgunder and very good. They drank out of paper cups intended for patients, in the medbay proper where there was plenty more room. Angela paced in restless circles, sipping, tongue circling her lips. Moira leaned against the wall and watched her.

“I miss her,” Angela said, halfway through her second cup. The words brought emotion and memory to the surface. Royal blue. A sweeping tattoo underneath a piercing gaze. Black hair going grey. A finger on the trigger—

_Habibti. Engel._

Angela.

Suddenly she was choking; suddenly she was drowning again. The world spun around her and the wine did not help.

“I know,” Moira said, stepping away from the wall to steady her. Her hands gripped her shoulders, warm and strong and real. She could have folded into that embrace, even if it smelled and felt wrong, and part of her very much wanted to.

She pulled away to glare up at Moira with over-bright eyes.

“You know? Do you? Do you feel _anything_?”

Moira blinked. She wasn’t smiling. Angela couldn’t have said when she had stopped.

“Yes,” she said, and leaned in.

Her lips were cool. They parted slowly to let Angela’s eager tongue in. Moira’s mouth tasted of the wine. She had initiated the kiss but was deliberate, unhurried, even as Angela was all fever and want. She slid their tongues together and pulled Moira closer, grabbing at the front of her shirt.

_Please—please—_

“Is it the wine,” Moira chuckled, ending the kiss but resting her nose against Angela’s, “or have you been like this since you got here?”

“I don’t know,” Angela said, and it was hardly even a lie. She looked down at the cup Moira was still holding, still nearly full. “You aren’t drinking.”

“I’m not fond of wine,” Moira said, and then smiled. “It tastes better on your lips.”

Angela flushed and shivered and wanted to kiss her again, to pull her hair and leave purple bruises on her neck and be cut up on her nails, to forget the emptiness threatening to swallow her through the alcohol or Doctor Moira O’Deorain or both.

“Drink it,” she said instead, almost a whine.

Moira raised her eyebrows, lifted the cup in a mocking toast, and finished it in a long slow draw. When she was done a drop trickled from the corner of her mouth, and Angela could not resist a second kiss that went on and on until they were pressed against a wall and Moira’s shirt was unbuttoned all the way and her thigh was solid between Angela’s thighs like the first time they’d met.

The bottle was empty and the world was fluid around her. Moira’s cheeks were flushed too, her pupils huge, her accent more pronounced than ever and every word caressed Angela’s eardrums like the hiss of the serpent of Eden.

Ana was gone. The hole was gone. Her clothes, too, were mostly gone. There was just the fire under her skin. Moira in all her senses.

Angela came first, propped against the wall with Moira’s teeth digging into her shoulder and her knee grinding her to completion. She cried out, forgetting there was a world beyond her and

the

other

doctor

came soon after, her own fingers rubbing frantic circles under her underwear, Angela daring to stroke her afterwards and licking her hand clean under Moira’s foxlike gaze. Somehow her fingers seemed sticky no matter how much

she

licked

two more orgasms out of Doctor O’Deorain with her bare knees on a floor that managed to be harder and colder than that of Ana’s dorm, sharp nails digging in her scalp and drawing tears from her until her whole face was wet. She touched herself while she worked, rode out another climax with Moira’s legs clamped around

her

head

was spinning and she was losing time, slipping from one moment into the next like a sleepwalker waking up. They were in one of the beds and she was naked, hair spilling over her shoulders as she rode Moira’s thigh and Moira ground against her knee, skin pressed to skin. The sheets were wet and spotted red—had they spilled wine? Broken skin? It didn’t matter, nothing mattered, just the muscle under her clit as she moved her hips in smooth circles while Moira panted and moaned out odd strings of Gaeilge. How entrancing she was, all points and angles, but her breasts and her skin were so soft. Angela looked into her eyes, blue and red, and

she

came

to in the bed in the dark with the haze gone and her head pounding. There were no windows here, and she’d lost her communicator somewhere in the previous hours. But a digital clock on the far wall informed her that it was four in the morning.

Moira’s bare arm was wrapped around her waist. The patient bed was not intended for two people, and so they were pressed together.

She had wanted someone to hold her.

The void opened again with such suddenness that it left her feeling sick. She closed her eyes and willed herself back to a sleep that would not come. The memory of Ana pounded in her head and her heart. The nausea would not dissipate.

“You awake, Angela?”

Moira’s low voice was a rumble in her chest, pressed to Angela’s back.

“Yes,” she managed. Her voice did not break.

“Do you regret coming to find me?”

“Yes,” she repeated, and Moira was silent for a long time.

“What did you want from me?” she asked eventually. She sounded sharper now. The hand on Angela’s waist shifted until her nails dug in.

“I don’t know.”

She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to sleep. More precisely, she wanted to be asleep back in her room, in a world and a life where she had not come to Moira O’Deorain for comfort, where Ana had not died at all—

“Did you want me to fuck you?”

“I don’t know!” Panic rose in her throat. She felt sicker with every second and couldn’t have said whether it was the alcohol or the company.

“You do know, you just don’t want to say.” Moira’s hand withdrew. The bed was not large enough to allow for space between them, but Angela felt the distance nonetheless. “Like you avoided me after the first time.”

“I did not _avoid_ you—“

“Of course not. Just too busy to answer texts, weren’t you? All tied up with Ana. No room for anyone else. You can hate me all you like. I wouldn’t mind that. But I wish you’d have the courtesy to be consistent about it.”

Her voice was level and businesslike. Angela wanted to see her face, her expression, but she would not betray her curiosity by moving. She stared through the darkness of the room at the clock and watched the minute change.

“Did you want me to hold you? Take care of you? Tell you that everything will be all right?”

She was mocking now. Angela drew her hand into a fist in the sheet.

_Yes._

“No.”

“That what Ana did? Did you squeal _Mommy_ when she made you come? _Mutti_? You want me to call you _Engel_?”

“No.”

“Did you want her to love you?”

The floor felt icy under Angela’s bare feet. She tripped on an article of clothing, but it was too dark to tell if it was hers or Moira’s. It would be impossible to find her clothes and dress in the dark, but a little closet near the front of the room held patient gowns. It would be suitable for the walk back to her room. A ghost in the halls. Anywhere was better than here.

Moira said nothing more as she left. Angela wondered if she’d ever said anything at all, or if the questions had come from her own head.


	4. end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blizzard: actually it was moira who turned gabriel into reaper. angela has done nothing wrong ever. :)  
> me:  
>   
> it ended up being longer than the other ones. hope you enjoy.

When she had received the invitation to the conference, it was the first thing she considered. She was ashamed of that, of how quickly her mind jumped to a person she had tried and failed to forget over the past few years.

She had tried and failed to forget a great many things. The memory that had gotten her through medical school was a burden now.

But she refused to be stymied. She would not let so petty a thing as personal feelings come in the way of her work. The betterment of medical science and humanity as a result was more important.

Of course, such resolutions meant little when she was standing at the front of the reception hall of Oasis’ university. The sound of waves and boats in the artificial sea was a calming background as she delivered her presentation. The exquisite architecture of the room might have distracted her if it was not for one attendee, sitting at a table very close to the stage.

Several of the ministers were in attendance, and the level gaze of one of them was waiting for Angela whenever she looked the wrong way.

Moira O’Deorain had aged well. Her face was more imperious now than ever. Her hair showed no signs of greying. Her nails retained their clawlike shape and length.

Angela wished she had not looked enough to notice these things. She wished that when she was finished and sitting once more at her own table, her attention moved on with the proceedings. She wished that she did not send errant glances Moira’s way. She wished that she did not spend the rest of the afternoon revisiting memories gone sour.

She wished she was a different person than who she was.

At the reception that evening, she entertained questions with nods and smiles. Her work, at least, was easy to talk about. It would be easy if it was all she could think about. Many acquaintances were there, gathered across fields and countries during a life in medicine. It was good to see them, or perhaps it would have been if her heart was in it.

But eventually she was left alone to stand at the edge of the room where there was no wall but simply the open air and the water below. Even given the brightness of the city lights, she could see stars above. The moon floated once in the sky and once in the sea as if she could reach out and pluck it up—

“You should be more careful, Doctor Ziegler. Someone could push you in.”

She closed her eyes. She had no name for the emotion she was feeling. Was she relieved? Had she wanted this to happen?

“Wouldn’t your predictive policing algorithms stop anyone before they had the chance? Or some automated drone catch me midair?”

It came out harsher than she intended.

“I’m afraid it’s still [an imperfect system](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzFvsH-I0Tw), but I’ll be sure to pass your suggestions on to my colleagues.”

“You do that.”

“Congratulations on your presentation, by the way. As elucidating as ever.”

“Is that why you’re talking to me, Doctor O’Deorain? To flatter me?”

“Minister.”

“What?” Angela turned, and she was unprepared for the sight of Moira leaning lazily against the wall, the moonlight washing the color out of her impeccable suit and the exquisitely-patterned scarf hanging over her shoulders.

“That’s _Minister_ O’Deorain, Angela.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she hissed, her tone acidic even as her hands shook and her mouth went dry. Suddenly she was entertaining thoughts of an empty hallway nearby, of that scarf stuffed in her mouth as Moira held her to the wall and spanked her. _That’s_ Minister _O’Deorain, Angela…_

Moira waved off her apology with a smile. “No trouble. Perhaps we’re too intimate to bother with titles.”

This was dangerous. She was remembering how it felt to kiss Moira, to eat her out, to feel nails leaving marks on her back that lasted a week. Her objections, the foul taste in her mouth, the regret—all those things were fading fast in the wake of her desire. She needed to leave, _now._

“Yes, well, thank you for your congratulations. I should really be going, I’m meeting a friend for a walk downtown—”

She was hardly able to take a step in the direction of safety and relief and another lonely night when Moira forestalled her with a very light hand on her shoulder.

“I wanted to invite you to dinner. To discuss your work and future prospects.”

When Angela looked at her, she was no longer smirking. Her face and voice were both earnest.

How could she be earnest about such a thing? The last time they had seen or spoken to each other was years ago, on a night weeks after Ana’s death when they had drunk and fucked and gone their separate ways. Angela would not have blamed Moira for hating her after that. Everything would be much easier if Moira hated her.

Or if she was capable of hating Moira properly.

“Dinner?” she echoed. “Where?”

“My apartment, if that’s all right with you. ElBuffi is undoubtedly packed, but I can request they cater for us—being a minister has its privileges.”

She winked, and Angela swallowed.

Here she was again, about to do something she would regret. She knew that. She knew in the morning she would hate herself for this. However she felt now, however wonderful the thought of Moira’s hands and mouth on her was, it would not last. She was going to rip open the ragged edges of a wound that had never healed properly the first time and never would, because she pulled up the scab each time it formed.

“I can’t turn down an invitation like that,” she said, and already the weight of future consequences seemed to pull her shoulders down.

“You’d better tell your friend, then,” Moira said.

“What friend?”

The smirk returned. “The friend you were going to go walking downtown with.”

Angela flushed.

Oasis was different at night, glittering and illuminated with artificial light. It was busier, too. Perhaps a city of scientists could boast a decent nightlife after all.

It was just the two of them in Moira’s car; the city’s predictive policing algorithms made bodyguards largely obsolete, and the vehicle had defenses of its own. They simply sat back as the car steered itself through traffic. Angela stared out the window to avoid looking at Moira.

“Won’t it raise eyebrows, you bringing me home?” she asked.

“Why should it? Is it so suspicious for the Minister of Genetics to confer with one of the most lauded women in her field?” Moira said, as they sped out onto a bridge that led into the network of underwater tunnels. “Unless you had something _inappropriate_ in mind?”

Angela frowned and said nothing more.

When they surfaced again, they were further from the city center and all its light. Angela craned her neck and was able to make out hundreds of stars glimmering in the vast sea of darkness.

“Is it fake?” she asked.

“Is what fake?”

“The sky. I wouldn’t have thought it would be so clear with all the lights.”

Angela glanced at her companion quickly enough to catch her wry smile.

“It’s real. You shouldn’t be so suspicious.”

“I just thought you were only interested in improving on things, not accepting them as they are.”

Moira stretched. “Well, I haven’t set my sights that high yet.” She turned to Angela and smiled more genuinely. “Perhaps now I can.”

Her penthouse was the crown jewel of a building set on an island next to the construction site of the tower that dominated the city’s skyline. Angela couldn’t resist asking Moira about it, but the question earned her only a wink and a murmur of “confidential.”

Dinner had beaten them there. The two omnic waiters from elBuffi greeted them with respectful nods. Moira knew both by name; to them, she was simply Minister O’Deorain.

“Do you eat there a lot?” Angela asked when they’d gone.

“I order in a lot.” Moira pulled off her coat and gestured vaguely. “Well, make yourself comf—”

She was interrupted by Angela’s hands slipping over her shoulders to pull the scarf free. The cloth was soft, so soft, against her fingers. She wound it about her wrists, not breaking eye contact with Moira all the while. The knot was difficult to tie without looking, but she managed it.

“Angela,” Moira said.

With her hands tied she reached up to unpin her hair. Blond curls swept over her shoulders to frame her face. Messy, no doubt, but no worse than it would look after Moira’s hands were in it.

“I can’t reach the zipper like this,” she said, somewhere between a plea and a whine.

At last Moira touched her, brushed her hair out of her eyes and let her hands come to rest around the back of Angela’s neck. It was not enough. Angela squirmed in place.

“Dinner will get cold.”

“I’m cold,” she said, the nervousness tightening in her throat. It was not happening like she’d imagined it happening. Not like it had happened before.

“And you expect me to warm you?” Moira murmured. One of her hands found the zipper. The other dipped under the collar of her dress to stroke her spine. Angela shivered.

“I want you to. I want you.”

She reached her bound wrists over Moira’s head to pull her closer, close enough that their lips and noses brushed. The vivid color of her unnatural eyes was all the more evident this close. Angela remembered those pupils blown huge, obscuring the color. She wanted them like that.

“Please,” she added, desperate now.

Moira let out a low groan and then her mouth was devouring Angela’s. She yanked the zipper down, but then her hands merely tangled in her hair to pull her closer. She bit at her lip until Angela was sure she’d draw blood, but she couldn’t find it in her to complain. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think about breathing, felt Moira’s tongue against hers, her nails digging into the back of her neck. And even bound, Angela could twine her hands into that short red hair and hold on.

Moira finally broke off the kiss, leaving them both panting. With one long nail she traced a line from the back of Angela’s neck, along her collarbones, and down the front of her dress. Moira didn’t look away from Angela’s face as her finger grazed over a hard nipple.

“No bra, Doctor Ziegler?”

“I’d be—oh—taking it off anyway,” she managed.

Moira shook her head and looked away, frowning. For an instant Angela feared she’d crossed some unknown line, done something wrong, but then Moira’s hands were on her shoulders, pushing the dress down and pinning Angela to the wall.

“I _intended_ to talk _business_ ,” she growled into her throat. Angela shuddered and arched her back to push them together. Her dress slid from her body and puddled on the floor, leaving her in white panties that grew damper by the second.

What business could Moira possibly have to talk about? What had they ever done apart from this?

“But maybe I should have expected this from you.” Moira pulled back far enough to look into her face. She was still frowning, looking angrier than Angela had ever seen her before. But the expression did little to make her less eager. A second later Moira’s hand slipped under her panties and then two, three fingers were inside her, and all Angela could do was keen and rock between the wall and that touch.

“Is that why you bothered showing up at all, Doctor Ziegler? Do you still fantasize about me fucking you? All those haughty looks and all the disdain in the world, but I touch you and you fall—to—pieces—” She punctuated the words with particularly rough thrusts, her thumb pressing into her clit, and Angela was coming, coming, her breath gone and her head in the clouds and her hips frantically jerking as she chased the orgasm, but Moira didn’t stop.

“Overwatch falls and you’re still the world’s darling. Can’t do any wrong. What if they saw you now? What if they knew what you sound like when you’re begging me to give you what you want? Maybe less of an angel then, _Mercy._ ”

Angela loved this, hated herself for it, could do nothing but listen to the vile doctor spew her angry words. She wished that every syllable didn’t have her leaking more, her inner thighs soaked, heat winding tight again even as her first climax leveled.

Moira rested her head on Angela’s shoulder. For a second she stayed like that. Her fingers stopped moving. She was breathing hard too.

“Please,” Angela whined, unable to help herself, squirming into the touch, her neglected clit throbbing.

“Oh, damn you.” Moira pulled her fingers from Angela’s cunt with a loud wet squelch, and then she was wiping them on her bare skin. Angela looked down to see her thighs, her stomach, her breasts painted with her own arousal. A demeaning sight.

She had no chance to protest the absence of touch before Moira had seized the loose ends of her scarf and was pulling her by the wrists across the room. The broad windows, glass from floor to ceiling, offered a breathtaking view of the archipelagic city and the indigo sea on which it was built. So magnificent was it that for a moment she was distracted from the ache between her thighs. But then Moira’s hand was gripping the back of her neck hard and forcing her downward, and again all Angela could think of was her own lust.

“Hands and knees. Next to the coffee table,” Moira ordered brusquely. Angela obeyed, though the floor was wood, hard and cold. Moira knelt down beside her and seized the ends of the scarf again. Her lithe fingers hurried to tie a new knot, and in a few moments Angela was bound to the leg of the little table. Not the most secure fastening—she could undoubtedly drag the table if she tried—but the restraints left her breathless nonetheless.

“Now wait a moment.”

Angela craned her neck around, shuffled awkwardly, but Moira had disappeared into an adjoining room. She waited on tenterhooks. At her mercy like this, Moira could experiment on her, stick her full of needles, put a gun to her head and pull the trigger, but somehow she couldn’t find it in herself to be afraid. Perhaps she was too stupid. That would explain how she’d ended up here, how she kept making the same mistakes.

She could hear sounds from the other room, drawers, rustling. She could smell their dinner, even hidden as it was beneath lids. The scents were delicious enough to make Angela realize she was hungry, but that need was hardly her priority at the moment.

It was perhaps five minutes before her hostess returned. Angela had returned to facing the window, which was more comfortable with how her hands had been tied, but when she heard footsteps she looked awkwardly over her shoulder again.

She was glad for it.

Moira wore nothing at all but for the black harness about her waist. She seemed so tall like that, languidly crossing the room. Angela drank in the sight of her. The shock of flaming hair that adorned her regal brow like a crown. The unnatural purplish veins running down one arm, previously hidden by her shirt. The juts of her knees and hips and elbows; the curves of her breasts.

Her eyes, red and blue.

And only then did Angela let herself look at the dildo, bouncing with every step Moira took. She was hungry, then, but food was the furthest thing from her mind.

Moira smiled. She circled the room to stand in front of Angela. She wrapped one hand idly wrapped about the base of the strap-on and stroked. Was it one of the advanced models, Angela wondered, that connected to the wearer’s nerves?

“You like that, don’t you, pet?” Moira chuckled.

Angela did not trust her dry throat to speak, so she simply nodded. Her pride and resistance had vanished. The morals she clung to everywhere else, the things that had made her despise Moira in the first place, were gone. There was only what she wanted, and she was no longer reluctant to admit it.

“Your pretty mouth stop working?”

The scarf was long enough to let her shift awkwardly up onto her knees. She stared up at Moira, eyes pleading, and opened her _pretty mouth_ to show exactly how well it still worked.

Moira’s smile was contemptuous, but she said nothing more. She merely gripped the back of Angela’s head with one hand and forced her down.

The silicone was cool and tasted rubbery. Angela hardly had a chance to draw her tongue over the flared tip before Moira was thrusting, forcing it down her throat. She gagged. Her eyes watered. Her empty cunt throbbed.

“I missed you,” Moira said. In and out. In and out. Angela was choking, drawing desperate breaths, throat constricting around the dildo. “What—prettier—sight than an angel on her knees— _ah—_ and so open, so eager, so _wet—_ ”

The tears spilled over, but Angela didn’t mind. She wasn’t really even listening to Moira. She was concerned only with the thing choking her as it fucked her throat.

Much too soon, it was gone. Much too soon, Moira was tracing a nail along her lip. Angela’s face was smeared with saltwater and spittle. She gazed bleary-eyed at the silicone cock, now shiny with her saliva.

“I want to feel you,” Moira murmured. “Hear you.”

She moved away. A gentle shove between the shoulderblades returned Angela to her previous position. On hands and knees she awaited Moira’s touch. Naked. Exposed. Enjoying every second.

She could not help the whimper that fell from her lips at the feeling of the dildo nudging at her lower lips. She shoved her hips back, but Moira simply tutted and moved away again.

“Needy girl.”

The pressure returned. For a few agonizingly long moments the length rocked back and forth between her thighs. With each stroke the fat head bumped her clit and slid over her entrance. Angela couldn’t take it. She shook and swayed with the motions. Her panting and the slick sounds between her thighs filled the vast room.

“Moira—come on—”

Moira’s hand came down hard on her ass.

“ _Manners,_ Ziegler.”

In the absence of pride and the presence of desperation, she acquiesced.

“Minister, _bitte—please_ fuck me.”

She heard the sharp intake of breath from behind her, but in a moment Angela did not care. In a single motion the silicone cock parted her lips and slid deep into her. The way was easy, her walls loose and the dildo lubricated by her saliva and dripping cunt.

It felt _good,_ so good all she could do was sigh with relief. For a moment they both were still. Angela was content to simply be full, to have that itch deep inside her alleviated. But the moment could not last forever; her clit was still aching, and Moira was hardly content to stay still.

Her nails dug in _hard_ to Angela’s waist. She pulled all the way out and slammed in again, and then neither of them could stay still.

“What—do you say—pet?” Moira panted.

“Thank you,” Angela gasped. “Thank—oh.” Her words could not help but dissolve into a cry as Moira angled her thrusts forward. Her thoughts splintered. There was only the sensation, only the slick and filthy sounds of Moira inside her, the pinpricks of pain at her waist as the nails broke skin. There would be scabs tomorrow. She would ache tomorrow. She would regret everything. But for now regret was the furthest thing from her mind as she rocked back and forth on her knees and moaned openly, wantonly, satisfied but still so desperate for more.

A hand seized her hair and pulled back, forcing her to crane her neck and look at the glass before her. She could see her reflection there, red-cheeked and drooling. She could see Moira behind her and how they moved together. And though it was dark out now, she could make out some of the lights beyond the window. They were high up, but still it was exhilarating to know how visible she was. A drone could fly by and see her. Someone with binoculars in the building across the water. They could watch Moira fuck her, see how much she loved it.

Moira came before she did, with a long string of oaths in Gaeilge. Her nails clawed streaks into Angela’s sides. She slipped one of her hands forward to rub her clit until Angela came too, her whole body collapsing down onto the floor. It was mercifully cool against her burning skin.

The sound of both of them panting filled the room for a long time after that. Angela rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. It was only when she wiped sweat from her brow that she realized Moira had untied her hands. There was a faint red circle about her wrist where the scarf had dug in. It would not bruise. She should have been relieved by that, but she had wanted bruises.

Eventually Moira stood and disappeared into the bathroom. Angela was cold now, sweaty and alone on the floor. She couldn’t be bothered to pull her tight dress back on, but she fetched her silken jacket from its pile on the floor and wrapped it around herself. Her phone was in one pocket.

It was past nine. She had three missed calls from... _Winston_?

“How do you feel?”

She hadn’t heard Moira come out. She jammed her phone hurriedly back into her pocket and stood. Moira wore a bathrobe, which was enough to make Angela feel self-conscious about her own exposed skin.

“I’m fine,” she said. “A bit tired.”

“Do you want to eat? I’d like to talk.”

There it was again. _Talk,_ like they had anything to talk about. It was enough to put her on edge. She was preoccupied with the missed calls from someone she hadn’t spoken to since Overwatch fell. Her suspicions about what Winston wanted only made her eager to leave so she could call him back.

“I’m not hungry, but water would be nice. What did you want to talk about?”

Moira gestured at the couch beside the coffee table. Angela sat obediently, folding her knees under her to keep her still-wet cunt away from the cloth. Moira joined her a second later, bearing two glasses of water. Angela accepted one and gulped it down.

“I have a proposal,” Moira began slowly.

“Proposal?”

Moira reached out to stroke gently along her forehead, tucking her hair behind her ear. The sensation sent pleasant shivers down her spine, but the fact that it was Moira touching her made her uneasy. It felt off. They had fucked, they were done, and there was nothing left, but still she was sitting there.

“A...job offer.”

“What?” Angela was startled enough to forget her discomfort, if only for a moment. “You want me to work in Oasis? Work for _you?_ ”

“No, not exactly. Not Oasis, unless you want to. Not for me, either—I know your love for being ordered about doesn’t extend beyond the bedroom.”

Angela flushed, and Moira laughed.

“I am Minister of Genetics, yes, but I also work for another...organization, one that pays very well for my research.”

Her expression shifted. She looked now intent, serious but earnest. “I know what you’ve been doing since the collapse. Working in war zones. Helping in refugee camps, going where there’s conflict. And you’re a good doctor, but that isn’t what the world needs. You don’t have the resources for research anymore, and perhaps after what happened to Overwatch you feel it isn’t worthwhile. But that’s what you should be doing. Working on the things you started before. The Valkyrie suit—the Caduceus—your creations have changed the world. Medics the world ‘round utilize your inventions. And you could do more. I know exactly how much you’re capable of. You simply need the support.”

The penthouse was huge, but it was too small. There was not enough air. Angela found her breath coming too fast. She did not want to have this conversation. She did not, could not, justify her decisions to this woman. How could she, when she hadn’t even justified them to herself?

“I am content with the decisions I have made,” she said coldly, stiffly. She hated now the touch of Moira’s hand on her shoulder.

“Come on,” Moira snorted. “You aren’t a triage nurse. You are squandering your abilities. It pains me to watch. I know what you could be, and this is not it.”

“You don’t know me.”

Moira looked at her with an appraising eye. “I know your work.”

“You don’t,” Angela said, thinking of the project she had abandoned after Overwatch’s fall. She thought of Commander Reyes lying in a morgue and herself alone with his body. There was nobody else who knew about that, about what she had tried to do. What she had failed to do.

She just wanted to go. They had done what she had come for. There was no reason to linger. But stubborn insistence would only lead to more arguing.

“Fine. What is this... _organization_?”

Moira hesitated.

“The world is changing; you know it as well as I do. Overwatch left a power vacuum. The UN has nothing to replace it. Russia and Australia are in turmoil; at this rate a second crisis could be imminent.”

Angela shook her head, uncomprehending. “What are you talking about?”

“You disagreed with many of Overwatch’s practices, but you stayed because it allowed you to achieve your objectives. Money coalesces in dangerous hands and we eat from them until we have enough to assert our values...”

“Moira. What organization?”

She paused a moment longer, tongue circling her thin lips.

“Talon,” she said.

“ _Talon_?” Angela jerked up to stare at the other woman’s face. She needed to see a smirk, the hint of a laugh, anything that would expose what she had just said for what it was, a joke in incredibly poor taste. But Moira looked serious, wary, not amused at all.

“An arrangement of convenience, as I was saying—”

In an instant she was on her feet, backing away from Moira. She felt much too naked now; her sheer jacket was covering hardly anything. She had given herself up to a monster. She had moaned and cried out and come. She had enjoyed it.

“ _Convenience?_ You’re working for a terrorist organization because of _convenience?_ Does being minister not pay enough? What, is all this—” Angela gestured wildly about the apartment. “—not enough for you?”

“You are letting your biases blind you. I ran counter-Talon ops in the old days too, Angela. They took plenty of shots at me. But when our aims align, it is merely a pragmatic decision to work for them.”

Angela let out a hysterical laugh. “Your aims align? What aims? Murdering Ana?”

Something in Moira’s face flickered. She stood as well, so much taller, and reached out as if to grab Angela’s arm. But Angela retreated still further until there was a good ten feet between them. Moira let her hand fall.

“No,” she said. “That was not my aim.”

“Just a _side effect_?”

Moira shook her head. “Look. I know this is sudden. I know your...prejudices—”

“ _Morals—_ ”

“—make it difficult for you to be objective. That always was your greatest flaw.”

“I am not a _child,_ Moira, blinded by emotion and unable to see past my own nose! The hypocrisy when you are only obsessed with results, with whatever you call progress, fixated on your own power and playing God—”

“Pet,” Moira said, the word sharp in her mouth, “of the pair of us, _I_ am hardly the one seeking to imitate omnipotence.”

Angela’s mouth was dry. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Have you forgotten young Mr. Shimada so soon? You pulled him from death and turned him into a machine. He didn’t ask you to. He didn’t want you to. He would talk about you on missions, you know—after we’d eliminate a target: ‘better bring him home with us, Angela would want to patch him up—’”

“I have made my peace with Genji, and that is none of your business!”

“Oh, it was my business. He was positively suicidal on missions, and I’d be the one in the field with him while you were safe and sound back at base. Got shot covering for him more than once and he’d always mouth off about that, too.”

“It is not—it was not playing God to want to save a life in front of me! I am not proud of everything I have done, but I could not in good conscience let him die without even trying—”

“Fine. Then what about the dead, Angela?”

Her stomach lurched. She was backed against the wall. She could turn and go out the door and try to run, but her pride kept her frozen there.

“The dead,” she echoed, heart racing. Moira couldn’t know. She couldn’t know.

“When I saw him, when I first saw what you’d done, I was awed. Finally you had thrown away your qualms, I thought, and set out to see how far you could go. And it was magnificent. But here you are, clinging to your image like a shield. What are you afraid of? I won’t mock you.”

But her voice _was_ mocking, and her words did nothing to alleviate the panic building in Angela’s chest like a spring wound too tight.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, and wished it was truer than it was.

“I’m talking about my former commander, you invertebrate. About Gabriel Reyes. About the Reaper.”

It felt like a punch to the stomach. Angela swayed where she stood. The roof might as well have collapsed on her. She had been running for several years now. She had always anticipated that the past would catch up with her, but she could not have anticipated that it would be in Moira’s penthouse after an evening passed in all the ways she hated to love.

“You are gifted,” Moira said, almost grudgingly. “Brilliant. I tried to reverse-engineer what you’d done by studying his cellular composition, but I couldn’t. You made something incredible. You made a perfect human weapon.”

“Stop it! It didn’t work; it didn’t work!” And if she had protested being treated as a child, Angela knew she was acting like one now, her hands flying up to cover her ears. “Stop lying!”

“Are truths you don’t want lies now?” Moira stepped closer. “Do you think that acting like you don’t know will save you the responsibility?”

“I didn’t know,” Angela whispered. “I didn’t know.”

She looked up. There was still a good five feet against them. Moira seemed to take up all the space even in this vast apartment. Her face was stony and contemptuous. Her eyes, fire and ice, burned into Angela’s tearful ones.

“Of course you didn’t,” she said flatly. “Because you’re the angel. And you’ll never be caught with blood on your hands.”

She turned her back and picked up their empty glasses.

“Are you going to kill me?” Angela asked, several long, silent seconds later.

Moira snorted. “Yes, that’s what you think of me. Thank you for that. No, Doctor Ziegler, I’m not going to kill you.”

“I could tell someone. I could tell the world that Oasis’s Minister of Genetics allies herself with an infamous terrorist group.”

“You could,” Moira said, and shrugged. “And I could tell the world the sort of experiments _Mercy_ gets up to. That she gets off on humiliation. That she moans like a whore for the woman she claims to despise.

“But I won’t. And you won’t.”

Angela stood there as Moira set the glasses on the counter and walked to the doorway. She retrieved Angela’s dress from where it lay in a crumpled pile on the floor and held it out by the straps, an offering. Angela hesitated before stepping into it. Moira pulled up the zipper. Stiff. Businesslike. She would not meet Angela’s eyes.

“I’ll call someone to take you back to your hotel. Don’t attend the conference tomorrow. Leave the city. A...colleague of mine is coming to visit, and you won’t want to run into him.”

“Moira,” Angela said.

“Go.”

She stood there, confused and aimless, for a moment longer. Then she reached out to open the door.

“Thank you for the offer,” she said, because she felt she needed to say something, because she didn’t know what else to do. It felt as if she’d gotten away with murder. As if she’d gotten away with something far worse.

This was who she was, an aimless woman standing on the doorstep of someone she should have loathed. But it was not who she wanted to be. She would leave the building. She would call Winston back. She would stitch up more lives. And she would leave Moira O’Deorain in the dust.

“Good luck with your research,” Moira said.

Angela nodded, tried to say _you too,_ but the words did not make it out of her throat. She slipped out of the apartment and let the door close behind her. She crossed to the elevator and pressed the button for the first floor.

She was sobbing before the doors slid shut.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments very much appreciated!


End file.
